


for the sake of science

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Cannibalism, Dubious Ethics, Gluttony (NYSFE), Horror, M/M, Science Experiments, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22053874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: From the get-go, Jimmy had attached himself to Michael with the resolve of a starved fish attached to a wriggling worm dangling from a barbed hook.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Tasty man/Hungry werepanther boyfriend
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2
Collections: New Year's Sins Flash Exchange





	for the sake of science

**Author's Note:**

  * For [primeideal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/gifts).



Jimmy is supposed to be cute.

Michael reckons he was a cute bastard the second he was born (formed might be the more accurate word, but he’s never been the kind of man to dwell on minor technicalities). Unfortunately, Michael had not been permitted to witness any stage of Jimmy’s creation.

However, Michael _had_ been the one tasked with raising Jimmy. Hell, he’d been the one to christen the creature – had muttered “Jimmy boy” under his breath as he stared at the infant for the first time, ignoring the steel plate below its cage that labeled it _WEREPANTHER: SPECIMEN #16._

Michael, by principle, was not fond of were-animals. A halfling boy named Jimmy? Well, Michael just might give _him_ a chance.

The baby seemed to agree. It abandoned the fat silicone nipple it had been suckling with a slick, wet pop and turned towards the direction of Michael’s low voice. It burbled curiously, the way that all babies do, looking up at Michael’s face with unseeing jade eyes.

And then, Jimmy cooed. His big eyes blinked closed and his little mouth opened wide, revealing scattered bits of sharp teeth and a set of pointed fangs. A thin stream of unswallowed milk trickled past the space between them. It pooled at the corner of his plump pink lips before spilling, dribbling down his chin to stain his black fur white.

The fur extended from his neck to the tips of his toes, and Michael buried calloused fingers in the dense, downy coat. It felt soft, and he tickled Jimmy gently. Jimmy’s mouth gaped wider, coos morphing into stuttered mewls as he wrapped his dainty tail around Michael’s wrist.

“He likes you, huh, Mike?” the lab assistant ordered to acquaint Michael with his new project chuckled, jabbing his side with a knobby elbow.

Michael folded his arms across his chest and grunted.

And Jimmy _liked_ Michael, all right.

Now, Michael was a stoic type – someone who clung to reticence like it was both shield and sword. But once a few drinks loosened his lips, he would brag to any coworker that listened about how Jimmy, the damn bastard, had grown up half on his lap, and acted more lost dog than big cat.

It was true, too. From the get-go, Jimmy had attached himself to Michael with the resolve of a starved fish attached to a wriggling worm dangling from a barbed hook.

On the night of his eighteenth birthday, Jimmy proved determined to show Michael just how _much_ he liked him. He was young and fresh and ripe – an exotic fruit begging to be enjoyed with relish before aging past its peak. Jimmy was certainly at his peak; old enough to have a man’s firm muscles stretched taut over a chiseled frame, but young enough to be blessed by boyish charm and its accompanying naiveté.

And _god_ , was Jimmy cute.

∞

Right now, Jimmy is not cute.

For all that Michael has devoted near half his life to doting on Jimmy, he’s trapped in a dingy corner of a dark room, trembling knees drawn to heaving chest. Jimmy, fully transformed, stands before him, towering above his hunched form even on all fours.

A late autumn breeze enters through a cracked windowpane, gentle and cool, but Michael is drenched with sweat. It stains the plaid fabric under his armpits; drips down the column of his spine to collect at the curve of his hip, wet. Fat beads starting at his balding temples roll into his eyes, mingle with tears, and then spill onto the cold stone floor in hot splotches.

Michael stares into Jimmy’s eyes. They’re round and glowing and close enough to see his own frightened reflection with unnerving clarity, and he vaguely wonders how similar sweat and tears taste. Michael makes a conscious effort not to think about other bodily fluids. Definitely not body parts, no.

Still, he retracts his limbs further into his core, like a crab that’s plucked from sand by hands heavy with intention – instinctually aware of the inevitable, yet driven by the very same instinct to shield itself, as if clinging to nonexistent hope with sufficient desperation will render it real.

Michael stopped believing in God when his mother laid herself across rusted train tracks, belly swollen with unwanted child, leaving behind a sobbing son to either beg or steal or follow suit. He has lived life to eschew doctrine and raise pragmatism on a pedestal.

Confronted with Jimmy’s slobbering jowls and rancid breath acrid as it fills his nostrils, Michael wishes he had one to pray to.

A shudder racks his body; Michael chuckles. The sound starts as a low, dry rasp but soon devolves to crescendo in high-pitched peals of delirium. Jimmy cocks his massive head and purrs. Or tries to, at least, because he’s a big cat, after all. Some things he just isn’t made to do.

So, Jimmy growls instead. The growl is birthed from the bottom of his gut and resounds through the small room. It’s the promise of a thunderstorm that will rain claws and teeth and drip blood in favor of water. Michael’s frame reverberates, his pounding heart seems to still, and he shits his pants.

Two hours ago, – it must have been a different universe – Michael had been lounging on a white sand beach, watching wisps of cotton cloud drift across a calm blue sky as his pale skin burned red.

It had been his first paid leave after twenty-three years spent slaving for the agency, and Michael was hell-bent on milking every single fucking second of it. Even then, he doubted he’d get another chance like this (dwarfed as he cowers before Jimmy, Michael knows).

“Mandatory vacation,” the messenger boy had said to him Tuesday afternoon, jealousy unmasked over a sealed manila envelope thrust forward. “Boss’s orders.”

Michael raised an eyebrow, waited until the boy’s footsteps faded, and ripped it open. No note, nothing. Just a reservation for a five-star hotel and its brochure, boasting private beaches bordering a turquoise sea.

And that was that. Michael was on his way to a weeklong trip on some tropical island whose name he hadn’t been told, and quite frankly didn’t care to ask.

He would have a can of beer cool in his hand, a horizon all for himself, and planned on soaking in sunlight like he’d never seen it before and would never see it again. It’s a shame Michael is no longer in a state to appreciate irony.

One hour ago, on the jet back to the lab, the Boss had contacted him directly:

 _Rasmussen –  
_ _Food supply lost in X013 raid. WP.Sp.no.16 starving since Wed. Possibly feral. Your responsibility. Need to placate._

Now, – armed with the realization that placation entails feeding Jimmy with the meat of his body, but as defenseless as a newborn in every other sense – Michael thinks he has minutes to live.

Jimmy has always loved to suck Michael’s cock. He allowed Michael to fuck him in the ass but it was obvious that he preferred to be on his knees, mouth opened wide to receive its hard, hot length. He liked to lap at his balls and trail the tip of his rough tongue up the thick vein on its bulging underside, and then stuff it down his mouth until Michael witnessed proof of impalement in the protrusion of his throat.

So, perhaps it should not be surprising that Jimmy begins his meal by sinking sharp fangs deep into the soft flesh of Michael’s penis.

∞

A few doors down, in a room that stinks of disinfectant, Leah and Sean nurse chipped cups of steaming coffee.

They watch Michael Rasmussen’s slow death through jaded eyes. Audio is not enabled, but the mounted monitors show that his mouth is open and his limbs – at least the three remaining – are flailing. They correctly assume that he is screaming. Soon, he will stop.

“Unable to withstand starvation. Maximum period till regression to feral state: 6 days, 11 hours, 42 minutes, 9.5 seconds. Mad enough to attack caretaker, hypothesis supported,” Leah reads aloud the data she recorded, drawling to fill the space with something besides the buzz of static.

“A goddamn failure, in other words,” Sean grunts. He has been working here much longer than her. He is not bothered by static, and says just what he feels.

“Guess we’ll have to start from square one, huh?”

“Yeah.”

A pregnant pause. On the screen, Michael Rasmussen does not move.

“What’s the Boss going to do with the failure?” Leah pops a piece of stale candy into her mouth and gives it an experimental lick. It tastes like lemon. She wishes it were orange.

Sean chews loudly on the last of his fries. He sucks salt and oil off his fingers before answering.

“Get rid of him. Bet ya fifty it’s by the end of the day.”


End file.
